Trading card photo of Gordie Howe as a member of the Detroit Red Wings. These cards were printed on the backs of Chex cereal boxes in the US and Canada from 1963 to 1965. Those collecting the cards cut them from the back of the boxes.

Gordie Howe, a great Canadian hockey legend, known for, among other feats, for his Hat Trick.

Here are a few facts:

* Born on March 31, 1928 in Floral, Saskatchewan.

* Died on June 10, 2016 in Toledo, Ohio at the age of 88.

* He was inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972.

* He was ambidextrous.

* Played from 1946-1971 and 1973-1980.

* He was nicknamed Mr. Hockey.

* A 23-time NHL All-Star, he held many of the sport’s scoring records until they were broken in the 1980s by Wayne Gretzky. He continues to hold NHL records for most games and seasons played.

* He won the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings four times, won six Hart Trophies as the league’s most valuable player, and won six Art Ross Trophies as the leading scorer.

* Howe was most famous for his scoring prowess, physical stamina and career longevity. He is the only player to have competed in the NHL In five different decades (1940s through 1980s). Although he only accomplished the task twice in his own career, he became the namesake of the “Gordie Howe hat trick”: a goal, an assist and a fight in the same game. He was the inaugural recipient of the NHL Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

* He was slightly dyslexic growing up, however, he was physically beyond his years at an early age. Already six feet tall in his mid-teens, doctors feared a calcium deficiency and encouraged him to strengthen his spine with chin-ups. He started playing organised hockey at eight years old. Howe quit school during the Depression to work In construction with his father, then left Saskatoon at sixteen to pursue his hockey career.

* Howe was an ambidextrous player, one of just a few skaters able to use the straight sticks of his era to shoot either left or right-handed.

* He experienced his first taste of professional hockey at age 15 in 1943 when he was invited by the New York Rangers to their training camp held at “The Amphitheatre” in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He played so well that the Rangers wanted Howe to sign a “C” form which would have given that club his NHL rights and to play that year at Notre Dame, a Catholic school in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, which had a reputation for discovering good hockey players. Howe wanted to go back home to play hockey with his friends, and declined the Rangers’ offer and returned to Saskatoon.

Here’s a quick quiz to test your knowledge of Canada. Don’t worry, the answers are further down on the post. If you don’t want to quiz yourself, just learn some trivia, it’s all here! Have fun, that’s all I ask.

8. When did Canadian John R. Connon patent the first panoramic camera in the world?
a) 1788
b) 1800
c) 1888

Answers:1. b) Angel Peak, British Columbia at 6,858 m. The second is Mount Logan, Yukon at 5,959 m.2. a) Mackenzie, Northwest Territories at 4,240 km. The second is St. Lawrence, Quebec/Ontario at 3,060 km.3. a) North Pelham, Ontario. It is estimated to be approx. 500 years old and is 30.5 m tall!4. b) Benjamin Franklin. He was joint deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753.5. c) Hartland, New Brunswick at 391 m it is the longest covered bridge on Earth!6. a) Goderich, Ontario where it’s the world’s largest salt mine. Sifto extracts 6,577,089 tonnes a year.7. a) Winnipeg, Manitoba on June 21, 1959 with the number 999. Most of Canada’s 911 was adopted on June 22, 1975.8. c) 1888. Even if you find earlier patents, Connon’s was the first to actually capture vistas of up to 360 degrees in a single exposure.

In Sparwood, B.C., they call it simply “The Truck.” The truck in question, a 1974 Terex Titan, is the largest tandem axel dump truck in the world. The 350-tonne, 20-m-long, 3,300-hp vehicle is so big, it can fit two Greyhound buses and two pickuups in the box at the same time.

The Titan was assembled at the General Motors Diesel Division’s assembly plant in London, Ontario (click to see a map) in 1973. Over the course of its four years of service at the Eagle Mountain mine, the “Titan” hauled about 3.5 million tons of earth. After 13 years in service, the 33-19 was restored and is now preserved on static display as a tourist attraction in Sparwood, BC, Canada.

Canadian music. It’s actually interesting. Here are just a few highlights:

“American Woman” by the Guess Who (based in Winnipeg, Manitoba) hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 list for three weeks in May 1970.

Musician Burton Cummings was born on December 31, 1947 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was a member of The Guess Who and was the first Canadian to have a quadruple platinum-selling album in the U.S. for his 1978 album Dream Of A Child.

Bryan Adams, Singer/songwriter, was born in Kingston, Ontario on November 5,1959. He was the first Canadian musician to sell one million alburms in Canada with his 1984 album Reckless.

Anne Murray was born in Springhill, Nova Scotia on June 20, 1945. She was the first solo Canadian female artist to be awarded an American Gold album (500,000 sales) in 1970 with her second album This Way Is My Way. It featured the well-known hit “Snowbird.”

Shania Twain, Canadian country music star, was born Windsor, Ontario on August 28, 1965. Her second album (1995) The Woman in Me, holds the record for most weeks at Number One on Billboards’s country album chart. It resided there for 29 weeks at the top and has sold more than 7.7 million copies.

Alanis Morissette, musician, was born in Ottawa on June 1, 1974. She still holds the record for the best-selling American début for a female solo artist, for her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill. The album won four Grammys and has sold more than 33 Million copies.

The band April Wine (from Halifax, Nova Scotia) became the first Canadian group to make a Platinum album (100,000 sales) in Canada just for advance sales, for The Whole World’s Goin’ Crazy which was released in September 1976. They also hold the record as the first tour to gross $1 million.

Céline Dion was born on March 30, 1968, in Charlemagne, Quebec. She was the first Canadian to receive a Gold Record in France. She did this in 1983 at just 15 years old.

Justin Bieber was born in Stratford, Ontario, on March 1, 1994. He is the first Canadian musician with five Number One albums on the Billboard 200 chart before turning 19 years old. He achieved this for his album My World 2.0 (2010), Under the Mistletoe (2011), The Remixes (2011), Believe (2012), Believe Acoustic album (2013).

I hope you enjoyed the post. Who are your favourite Canadian musicians?